Hundreds of engineering colleges found to be bogus

Hyderabad: In a shocking revelation, the Telangana government has found that a majority of the engineering colleges established in the State are there for just to make money by indulging in corrupt practices and students are not being benefitted.

This finding has been reported to the government by the state level task force committee, which was appointed to look into the affairs of the engineering colleges, mushroomed in the State.

The government has come to the conclusion, after studying a 31- page report of the panel that about Rs 3,000 crore were going into the pockets of the colleges which did not meet the standards stipulated by the All India Council for Technical Education.

The findings of the panel corroborated the concern expressed by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao that the most engineering colleges were set up only to make money and that the fee paid to them under the reimbursement scheme had gone down the drain.

Wondering over the staggering amounts going into the engineering colleges' accounts, the Chief Minister said that with that money government could build an irrigation project and could produce 1,000 mw of power.

The higher education department which is responsible for supervising the engineering colleges, found through the report that some colleges were filling the registers with the names of the students of other states just to claim the fees. It also found that the agents involved in them were being given gifts like laptops, tablets and others for 'recruiting the students'.

Telangana government found that Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 crore were being granted every year to the engineering colleges in the form of fee reimbursement for about 1.15 lakh students and out of it only Rs 1,500 crores was claimed for real students. It found that most of the colleges in and around Hyderabad were the major beneficiaries of the scam.

The State Level Task Force Committee was being appointed by the erstwhile combined Andhra Pradesh government to go into matters related to the engineering colleges. It was established by the GO no 54 of higher education, issued on August 11, 2012.

The inspection of 685 engineering has taken place from October, 2012 and January 2013 and the State Level Task Force has held need based inspections between October, 2012 and March,2013. The colleges were asked to provide information regarding general information, infrastructure, teaching and non-teaching staff, and academic and pass percentage, and audited financial report.

In spite of giving sufficient time only 120 out of the 700 colleges of the erstwhile combined Andhra Pradesh have submitted reports. About 31 colleges have informed that they have applied for closure and the state level committee inspected 654 colleges.

During the inspections it was found that 319 colleges did not meet the mandated built up area and the deficiency variation was between 0.12 per cent and 87.94 percent, 393 colleges did not meet statutory requirements in terms of number of computers and percentage of variation was between 0.91 per cent and 95.65 per cent. As far as the laboratories concerned, about 449 colleges did not meet the statutory requirement of laboratory area and the deficiency varies between 0.91 per cent and 92.83 per cent.

In case of number of laboratories it was found that 565 colleges did not have enough numbers and 146 colleges did not have required volumes of books. The Task Force Committee found that 622 colleges did not meet the statutory faculty requirement and the ratio of qualified teachers and students was 1:28 against the norm of 1:15.

The appointed faculty was 55,082 for 1,13,776 students. In the case of qualified teacher student ratio, it has been observed that it was less than 1:15 in 32 colleges, 1:16 to 1:20 in 90 colleges, 1:21 to 1:25 in 86 colleges, 1:26 to 1:30 in 88 colleges, 1:31 to 1;35 in 68 colleges, 1:36 to 1:40 in 45 colleges, 1:41 to 1:45 in 44 colleges, 1:46 to 1:50 in 30 colleges and more than 1:51 in 171 colleges.

While 654 colleges need 8,398 professors there were 2,182 with Ph.D., against 16,796 associate professors there are 4,789 with Ph.D. and M Tech qualification and as against 50,391 assistant professors there are 32,833 with M Tech and B Tech first class qualification.

It was found that 532 professors were working without Ph.D. In case of pass percentage 143 colleges have below 20 per cent performance, 109 between 20 to 40, 106 between 30 to 40, 77 between 40 to 50, 53 between 50 to 60, 43 between 60 to 70, 19 between 70 to 80 and 80 above pass percentage was observed in 19 colleges.

The committee has established that about 11 colleges have filed false affidavits before the courts stating that they were paying salaries as per the AICTE norms.